15 Activities Using a Classroom Calendar

Written by Holly (Teach Starter)

Updated 3 years ago | 4 min read

The trusty classroom calendar has been part of morning routines across classrooms all over the world!

Some say it’s a great way to focus children for the beginning of the day! I say it’s a fantastic learning opportunity every morning! There are so many fruitful activities that can be enjoyed by you and the students to cement different learning concepts.

Setting Up a Classroom Calendar

Use our Classroom Calendar Pack to create a display that will stay up for the whole year! Each morning a student is allocated to change the appropriate parts of the calendar.

Laminate and use velcro dots to make it easier to change daily! This Calendar Pack teaching resource includes a template for today’s date, the month, the weather, the season, days and dates of that month and a template to identify today’s day, yesterday and tomorrow.

Each of these topics can generate so many different discussions about seasons, sequencing, numbers etc

Learning the seasons is an important aspect, especially in the early years.

Sequencing and recognising days and dates is an important aspect of using this calendar resource with your students.

Classroom Calendar Activities for the Classroom

1. Using the months of the year word cards from our Classroom Calendar Pack. Sort the months of the year as a class, leaving a gap for the current month. Ask the students:

What month are we in?
What month is it next?
How many months till the end of the year?

2. Write the months of the year on the whiteboard (out of order), students have to write the months of the year in order. Who’s the fastest?

3. I love the knuckle way to remember how many days in each month.

All the months that have 31 days are the knuckles. The other months are in between the knuckles. After completing the calendar for the morning, have students put their hands in fists and teach them the method. Once they understand, ask the students how many days are in each month, mixing it up of course!

4. Practise ordinal numbers. Ask the students to count in ordinal numbers starting from 1st, alternatively, have them start at a larger ordinal number such as 12th.

5. Using the days of the week word cards from our Classroom Calendar Pack. Sort the days of the week in order as a class – discuss the days that make up a school week and the days that make up the weekend. Ask the students:

What day is it today?
What day was it yesterday?
What day is it tomorrow?

6. Calendar skills. Ask the students different word problems such as:

If my birthday was on the 9th of this month, what day of the week will it be?
What is the date of the third Tuesday of this month?
What was the date last Thursday?
How many days till Saturday?

7. Discuss the different seasons! Ask the students a number of questions:

What is the season currently?
How many months left of this season?
What is the next season?

8. Add and subtract dates. Give students a variety of word problems, such as:

The strawberries will be ready to pick two weeks from today. What day and date can we begin picking strawberries?
We have been at school for three weeks today, what date did we start school?

9. Discuss the weather using adjectives! Ask the students to write as many adjectives as they can that describe the current weather.

10. Create a picture graph showing the weather for the month! At the end of each month, you can discuss the results.

11. Look at place value! If the date is the 28th. Have the students create this number using bundles of paddle pop sticks. How many ones? How many tens? What number comes before? What number comes after? If I added 10 to this number what would my answer be?

12. Keep track of how many days your students have been at school using cups to show hundreds, tens and ones and paddle pop sticks!

13. Use the date as the number of the day. Download our Number of the Day Warm-Up PowerPoint or our Number of the Day Worksheet.

14. Spelling activity. Depending on the level of your students. Have them write the day of the week, or the month of the year on a partner’s back, alternatively, if you want to check the spelling, have students write the words on ‘show me’ boards!